New Concept by Georgian Haute Couture Brand Astute
New Georgian brand Astute appeared on the Georgian market amid the second wave of COVID-19, after Tata Aslanishvili united unique concept and haute couture principles into one idea with the support of her sister Salome Aslanishvili.
When attending Esmod fashion school classes in Paris, France, Tata decided to develop a new interesting and smart sub-contextual concept for her products. She believes that fashion has much more load than only the visual part. In this way, Tata established a brand that sews single patterns of exclusive and individualized clothes. In order to create unique artworks, the designer uses premium-quality natural hand-colored Italian fabrics. Tata Aslanishvili talks about the business, concept, and future plans of the Astute brand.
-When attending the fashion design faculty at the Academy of Arts in Tbilisi, I decided to launch a different and bold style in the fashion world and create clothes that would not be designed for only shows and that would delight the everyday life of my clients. Each item has its own story and idea. For instance: I started creating my first collection after graduation from Paris university when I painted human internal organs onto silk fabrics.
In this way, I wanted to demonstrate that the human’s internal world is also beautiful, and what we perceive as ugly deserves much more attention. Having arrived from Paris, I realized that I had to learn the construction art very well. I offered my sister Salome to work with me and the brand was established in this way.
-The sub-context of the name is smartness, reason, and intellect. My lecturer in Paris hated this concept, but I have always dreamt of creating intellectual fashion. I want all details to be full of interesting ideas. I adjusted the name of Astute to my bold undertaking and this name says that fashion is not bought for only visual aspects and it may comprise deeper opinion. -What unique products does Astute offer to clients? -The brand’s unique concept makes our products special and different – each item will represent a single exclusive pattern in the world. We use premium-class Italian fabrics: silk, wool, viscose, and so on. This is a very hardworking process because it’s upon me to fulfill the designing works, while my sister assists me in the construction process. We treat all details together. For example, we pay much attention to select the corresponding fabric.
Tbilisi lacks premium-class fabrics. -For which segment do sew clothes and what is the company’s price policy? -We create haute couture concepts, but from the very beginning, I wanted to make my products affordable for the medium segment. Therefore, we have a diverse price policy depending on the model and the fabric. The brand will always maintain prices that will enable customers to buy premium-class, unique clothes created exclusively for them. _Where can we buy Astute clothes? -In order to simplify the purchasing process, we created astute.shop platform. After passing the simple and standard procedures, all our models can be ordered from our website. We also provide various discount campaigns.
As for other plans, besides the Georgia market, we also plan to enter the European market. We have already launched negotiations to send our collections to Paris and Madrid. Both cities show growing interest in Georgian products. We wanted to open a store of Georgian designers there, but the COVID-19 pandemic has frustrated these plans.